Category: Prayer

Last and Lasting

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Photo by Joe Grant © 2018

Come unto me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take up my yoke and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble-hearted, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden light.  Matthew 11:28-30

Seeker,
What do you leave behind for those coming after you?

As I grow down, creaking and groaning,
I find my (much-diminished) self,
ever-closer to the ground.

Bent a bit,
and increasingly inclined
to question rather than resolution,

I am more at home
with the lyrical than the literal 
in any and everything: rhyme without reason.

Truth, that once seemed
to fit so neatly
into my travelling haversack,

seems so much larger,
that I can no longer
get my heart, let alone my arms, around it.

Still, wisdom comes to visit,
gracing my committed incoherence
with room enough for wonder and woe to cohabit.

As tears flow more readily than reasons,
explanations evade me for the monstrous misery I witness;
swept away in a deluge of compassion.

What to tell my dear, growing-up children,
after over half a century of wondering and wandering;
looking back more frequently than ahead?

It sounds so simple and simply too hard;
that love is where they came from
and all that keeps us going.

as we live in the light and the love of those
who came before us…
…we will be remembered
in the way others still live, and still live on, in our love.  David Whyte

And, with the evaporation of absolutes
in the harsh light of mercy,
judgement and dogma dissolve.

Though I can’t quite put my finger on it,
I think, somewhere I must have surrendered;
lost or let go these last illusions of control.

How frightening, to be so free;
lightly-burdened;
co-responsible for everything, yet in charge of nothing.

Could this be
the uncharted territory I always sought, 
while playing in the safe confines of the sandpit?

What now remains— last and lasting—
before the long slumber                                                                                                         envelops for good what stood for me.

Now, daily to marry grateful wonder with woe,
and find, in that blessed arrangement, stepping-stones
to help in my stumbling toward the wholeness called well-being.

May it be so for you, fellow pilgrim,
as you make your way home,
much more deeply into here; far less concerned with hereafter.

And in your seeking, may you be found
and found out, as a wise fool, whose supple heart,
cleaved by loss and love, may never close to mercy and mystery.

Rest and be thankful!

joe

Spread the Light

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Photo by Joe Grant © 2018

As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. John 9:5

Seeker,
Did you miss the miracle of today, or did it wake you up to wonder?

It’s happening right now;
somewhere out there
daylight is dawning.

That fresh gift of morning
has already graced us all, as bleary-eyed,
we rolled from shadow into nuclear radiance;

a momentous transmutation
of hydrogen into helium, casting out enormous energy
to shatter the all-surrounding gloom.

Every millisecond of existence,
this sacrificial spectacle
enlightens the frigid immensity of the void.

At 186 thousand miles per second,
solar outbursts hurtle across 93 million miles,
to wake us, warm us, make us squint.

And we may blink and blindly say:
“It’s just the sun. It happens every day.”
After all, it has been reliably radiating for over four billion years.

Yet, if the miracle of sunshine,
fails to impress or startle us from our stupor,
perhaps we are simply blinded by the glare.

The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision. Helen Keller

In this world so darkened by despair and deep division,
we fumble dimly,
to see past self-interest, fear and endless feuding?

Looking Down to See Beyond
In the darkness before dawn,
a pilgrim stumbled upon
a limpid pool.

And kneeling down to drink,
glimpsed the Milky Way
shimmering beneath dark water.

Then gazing heavenward,
gaped and gasped
at the cosmic show beyond the trees.

And the silence whispered:
“Be still, that all who look upon you,
might also lift their hearts to Me.

For the stiller you’re becoming,
the clearer will your reflection be.”  (Anonymous adapted)
if we are still not astonished, we are not yet awake!

From the rising of the sun to its setting
the name of the Holy One be praised. Psalm 113:3

God-willing, we’ll be blessed by another sunrise,
to open our hearts and bring us to our knees.
But none will exactly be like this shining, singular morning.

So, as our world rolls, dawn to dusk,
we contemplate the countless faces,
whose loves and longings sunlight graces.

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then the lame shall leap like deer,
and the speechless sing for joy. Isaiah 35:5-6

Then each life illumined in morning bright
will reflect that merciful light,
to everything under the sun that comes within our sight.

joe

Gracefully Grounded

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Photo by Joe Grant © 2018

Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up, increasing and yielding thirty, sixty and a hundredfold.  Mark 4:8

Seeker,
When was the last time your soles graced the ground beneath your feet?

Daily, we tread
or trample
a lush carpet of life.

Upon this thin floor
of muddy vitality
the elements of our existence depend.

What disdainfully we call dirt
(as in dirty) or soil (as in soiled)
is actually the miracle beneath!

People usually consider walking on water or air a miracle.
But the real miracle is not to walk either on water or thin air, but to walk on earth.
Thich Nhat Hanh

Our given scriptural name
“ADAMAH” or “grounded one”,
describes our earthy roots.

“Human” reflects humble origins,
for we are “humus-beings”;
earthlings realized from sacred soil.

The Holy One formed “Adamah” from the dust of the ground, and breathed into its nostrils the breath of life. Genesis 2:7

Dirt is no dead thing.
Each topsoil ounce holds countless communities;
billions of invisible microorganisms.

One in four forms of life
on our planet
thrives in the dank recesses beneath our soles.

Unseen and unknown decomposers
recycle the necessary elements of life
till even deserts bloom in their season.

Earth purifies water, absorbs waste,
and, in the end, takes us all back
to remake our empty husk into a life-giver.

Source of nourishment,
sacred soil provides raw material for reality,
and cradles the bones of our ancestors.

Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. Exodus 3:5

When walking the woods,
for the recovery of soul,
I cast my gaze upon the loamy litter scattered about me.

Such mucky wisdom, earthy lessons,
fruits and seeds of innumerable seasons,
lie strewn at my feet.

Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees takes off his shoes. Elizabeth Barret Browning

While briefly living along the Amazon,
I was awed by the community of crawlers
that cover every available centimeter of forest floor.

To this day, the aroma of wet leaves
carries me back
to my Amazonian epiphany—

from our insect planet
rooted in a thin film of mud,
every imaginable form of breathing life erupts;

from towering mahogany to scarlet macaws;
in over-abundance
we have yet to name.

In our fleeting lifespan we are gifted
with a multitude of graces
in three dimensions.

Illumined Grace gasps in wonder;
at sunsets, ocean vistas,
and misty mountain peaks.

Darker Graces visit us unbidden,
with the embrace of suffering;
the letting-go and losing of all we hold dear.

Then there is Earthed Grace—
well-mixed into the messy buisness of living—
bounty revealed to the lowly, who live close to the ground.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Matthew 5:5

With dusty hands and muddied feet,
may you know gratitude for the blessing of being human,
graced to humbly walk God’s good garden.

joe